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Mike Caudill/Driven PR This Pro Lite Unlimited race truck is powered by a 347-cubic-inch Ford V-8.LAKE ELSINORE, Calif. – Casey Currie drummed in one message last Friday during our laps around the track at Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park: “Slow! Slow down! Slow into the turn!” Currie, 29, who has motorcycles and Baja 1000 trucks, had good reason to worry.
After he had first showed me around the five-turn, about 1.1-mile course, we switched places. Now I had the wheel of this beastly Pro Lite Unlimited truck, a two-seat demonstrator that was otherwise comparable to single-seat entries in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, which competed here over the weekend.
Naturally, I envisioned soaring over the jumps, touching down on all four wheels and pitching sideways into each turn, where I would find the cushion on lightly packed dirt and shoot forward for the next suborbital launch.
But Currie communicated a healthy respect for the truck’s potency, its 2,800-pound mass, and its willingness to roll over if mishandled. He also stressed that the highly technical business of flying over jumps shouldn’t invite a cavalier attitude, lest we land on our chins or tailbones.
In fact, just before I had strapped into the driver’s seat and hooked my helmet to the truck’s intercom system, another driver in a 300-horsepower truck had gone end-over-end. Fortunately, he appeared to be uninjured after the wreck.
Mike Caudill/Driven PR Casey Currie, 29, was a little nervous about a journalist’s relative lack of experience behind the wheel of a racing truck.For a reporter to get behind the wheel was unprecedented, so why was he letting me drive the truck? “I’m not sure,” he said, hardly able to hide his skepticism. “Have you ever driven on a track?”
My naming some big ones didn’t seem to allay his concerns about my ability. The fact is that he was stuck with a writer almost twice his age behind the wheel; the recent accident had clearly upset him.
While he was still strapped in, I nudged onto the track. As soon as the engine had fired up, normal conversation became impossible, but through the speakers inside my helmet Currie told me everything that could go wrong.
The truck’s lack of a windshield allowed me to see, ever so clearly, how imposing the jump hills looked. Rattling around in the back of my brain was a speech that Rich Unferdorfer, the racing series fire safety director, had given at the drivers’ meeting. Flame-retardant socks were strongly encouraged, he had said.
Mike Caudill/Driven PR Ronald Ahrens, the author of this post, gets some wheel time.Meanwhile, even though I’d bitten into my right cheek on a jump during Currie’s demonstration lap, I felt relaxed and comfortable in the racing seat. Cozied up to my right knee, throwing off a fair amount of heat through its sheet metal covering, the throbbing 347-cubic-inch Ford V-8 begged to go racing.
Reviewers of new cars might talk about instantaneous response, but boldly shooting forward in this rig required just one more red blood cell in my big toe. Everything about the truck reflected its intent to extend the driver’s reflexes. The steering had eye-blink directness. The tread of the big tires offered plenty of bite. And without 4-wheel drive, the truck’s rear-end wanted to swivel right around so we could power-slide through the corners.
“These ruts could make us roll over,” Currie said, breathing shallowly, as we entered a turn. “Are you braking?”
We seemed to be crawling, and I’d hardly touched the brakes on the first lap.
“Use the brakes,” he said.
Mike Caudill/Driven PR One of the turns at the Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park in California.Noticing the white flag waving, he expressed astonishment that we had been granted a third lap (and then another, which seemed almost endless, for a wholly unneeded cool-down).
I turned off the track, docile to the last. At least I hadn’t lost control and ruined someone’s day.
Mike Caudill/Driven PR Ronald Ahrens drives a racing truck at the Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park in California.
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